Let the Sunshine in! Part 1

Transformation begins in darkness. A seed has to be buried, break open, and change in order to grow. It must experience darkness before it can handle the light.

When you shine a light on your life, it does not always illuminate happy things, but it does help you to have perspective. Light is impersonal, it shines on everything that is not in the shade. To see yourself clearly, you must be able to look at the self objectively. When you try to hide from any part of yourself, you have a shadow side, and when you don’t own it, it owns you.

In this journey I have found wonderful peace and joy, but I have also had to own my fear, jealousy, resentment, and rage. A lot of that is uncomfortable for me, but if I don’t own it, I am not living with integrity. These parts of myself do not have my highest good in mind. They just want to survive, they are comfortable in the shadows, and they want me to stay there too.

My journey toward Magic began with asking myself questions about my purpose. I was feeling a longing for more, as if there was something missing in my life that I couldn’t quite articulate. I was having a spiritual awakening, though I didn’t know it at the time. It turns out that the things I was “missing” were never gone; I was just tuning them out. I was afraid of the shadows, so I didn’t want to turn on the light.

When I started reading about spiritual awakening, I found out that it’s a process that involves some predictable commonalities, even though we all experience it in a unique way. It’s common, apparently, for people to have periods of questioning, and yearning for more. Often then, comes a period called the “dark night of the soul” which is a time of hopelessness. It’s sometimes triggered by external events that cause us to feel powerless, such as a loss. Then, when we have had enough anguish, we allow ourselves to open to the possibility that a world exists beyond the veil.

I honestly think I have teetered on the edge of my dark night of the soul a few times, but then it all came crashing down when my mother unexpectedly died. I was so broken by grief that my whole worldview crumbled. I had no choice but to radically believe that there was a deeper meaning to all of this. The only alternative would have been to stay in the dark night, in anguish and confusion.

Since I was in crisis, I let myself truly believe in a higher power, and that belief was the key to unlocking this world to me. My grief allowed me to break through my fear faster than I otherwise would have.

I started moving along in my transformational journey of finding my true self and trusting the Universe. I could see that the feeling of having lost my spark, and the craving for deeper fulfillment was actually my soul calling out, wanting to be heard through the clamour of my mind.

I asked the Universe for deeper intuition, and clarity, and it has been showing up for me. I used talk about my energetic feelings or “vibes”, but still denied the truth of them. I gave so much credit to my mind and I ignored my feelings. Carolyn Myss says that we are all intuitive; we don’t need to learn how to be intuitive, we have to have to develop the self-esteem to trust ourselves.

I eventually figured out that I already know the truth in my heart all the time, I just have to trust myself. Part of the problem is, sometimes intuition tells me things that I don’t like. Sometimes I am very afraid, sometimes my pride is in the way, or my resentment. The truth is, no matter how much I may want to lie to myself, my higher self knows the truth, and will try to find a way to express it. If I look at my life objectively, without fear and emotional attachment, it’s like shining a light on a shadow. I can clearly see where I need to change. The problem is, if fear is in charge, the mind comes in and rationalises why I can’t do what I need to do, or why it won’t work.

I recently had an outburst of anger directed toward my kids. Afterward, I knew in my heart that the right thing to do was to apologize, but my pride really didn’t want to do it, so my mind came up with reasons to justify my actions. I spent the rest of the day ruminating, feeling angry and unbalanced. When I finally saw my actions and feelings from an objective place of illumination, I was able to let go, apologize, and move back into a better vibe.

I am working on staying aligned with my higher self, one day at a time, one decision at a time, with integrity. I can no longer get away with lying to myself.

Part of my spiritual transformation includes choosing new ways of seeing both my inner and outer worlds. Perception is important because we see our world through a lens, which determines how we understand it. Our five senses are limited ways of perceiving; they only receive a small amount of the information that is right in front of us.

The physical world is made up of encoded fields of energy. Our bodies are made up of vibrating atoms that are rearranged and recycled all the time. The physical world is a constantly changing river of microscopic dots that flow in fields of energy, but this is not how we perceive it. These energies have physical representations, and these are the things that we can see and measure.

We are a mind-body-spirit-energy system. Staying grounded connects us to our body, meditation connects us to our spirit, and our bodies and minds help us to regulate our energy. Our habitual thoughts regulate our habitual emotions. The way we connect with ourselves, others, and the Universe dictate our energy. Because we are all interconnected energetically, we can sense the energy of others. If I walk into a room, I can tell if the “vibe” is tense or relaxed, immediately.

I have come to think of the physical world as just a reflection of a deeper energetic realm that we can’t see directly, but we can perceive through intuitive channels such as feelings, flashes of insight, signs and symbols. I had an intuitive vison recently, that symbolised my need to let go of things that have been draining my power. I was thinking about how I was holding on to resentments, and a picture came into my minds eye. The picture was my energetic body, like a bubble surrounding my physical body. There were cords attached to it, where energy was leaking out, draining me. I saw myself cutting these cords, patching up the leaking places, and floating, like a balloon, with a circuit of energy running through me, connecting me to an eternal source, from above, and from the earth below. These circuits didn’t tether me, I could flow freely along within them. I was no longer losing energy and being weighed down by the cords. I could flow freely through life. I could be in the flow of the Universe, living in the moment.

I probably would have paid very little attention to this image in my minds eye before. Now, I can see it was my intuitive sense. It was a symbolic vision, giving me direction from a deeper place that is beyond language. I realized it, and I was able to interpret it.

I still catch myself starting to ruminate on resentment sometimes, but I quickly notice it and stop, imagining I am letting go of the cord. When I let myself ruminate on a resentful thought, I am plugging into an energetic drain, and holding onto it. I need to let go. I know that the more often I stop this negative pattern in its tracks, the less power it will have over me. If I find myself feeling attached, resistant, or upset, I take a breath, and have a close look at the situation. I do some and journaling, and ask the Wise Woman, “What is the lesson here?”

Letting go feels amazing.

Try to identify the areas of your life where you are giving your energy away. Some examples could be negative beliefs, resentments, fears, guilt and shame. If you are energetically holding onto these things, they are draining your precious life-force.

If you feel attached to an energy drain, a good first step in taking your power back, is to visualise cutting the cord. Let it go and trust the Universe to handle it. Ask the Universe to guide you to the highest good possible at that moment. Then, ask your Wise Woman for advice, and listen.

Trust yourself.

Live your Magical Life 😊

Amy